This excellent guide to the
marine life of southern Africa is well known to most people interested
in our rich marine fauna and flora. It is simply the best general
guide to the common plants and inshore animals of our area. It covers
the full gamut of shallow-water invertebrate animals from sponges, cnidarians
(jellyfishes, sea anemones, corals, sea fans etc.), flat worms to ascidians
(sea squirts). The marine vertebrates (hagfish, sharks, rays, chimaeras,
bony fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals) occupy less than a third of the
book.

Most of the beautiful colour
photographs that illustrate the species were taken underwater and show
the animals in their natural habitats. On the page facing the photographs
is a brief text giving diagnostic characters to identify the species, normal
adult size (for invertebrates) or maximum size (for fishes), and notes
on biology (for most species). A map showing the distribution in
the southern African region accompanies the text for each full species
account. Related, less common, species are illustrated with a photo
or drawings, and the text for these species is just a sentence or
two, with brief notes on diagnostic features and (for some
species) habitat and/or distribution.

An annoying feature of the
layout is the position of the page numbers, located near the inner margin
of the pages. This makes it difficult to quickly locate a particular
page.

The fish section comprises
about 255 species, not counting the brief mention of “related species”.
Most of the fishes are easily identified from the excellent photos, the
vast majority of which were supplied by Dennis King.

The rationale for the grouping
of fish species seems to be that superficially similar species should be
placed together for ease of identification. The numbering system
is apparently an ad hoc method of coordinating text and names with the
photos.

Unfortunately, the supposed
diagnostic features that are given in the text for many species are too
vague or variable to be effective in distinguishing closely related species.
For example, the identifying characters of the dusky shark, Carcharhinus
obscurus, given as “Dusky grey; snout broad and rounded. Upper
teeth triangular. Characteristic mid-back ridge; first dorsal fin
small, second dorsal low.” This diagnosis would also fit the bignose
shark, Carcharhinus altimus, or the Zambezil shark, C. leucas
(aka the ‘bull shark’).

* * *

Herewith some corrections
and comments to aid folks who want to improve their identifications
and sort out changes in fish names.

The blue stingray (page 216)
was also previously known (in Smiths’ Sea Fishes) as Dasyatis
pastinaca (Linnaeus, 1758), but Leonard Compagno and Paul Cowley determined
that Linnaeus’ species (which lives in the Mediterranean and northeastern
Atlantic Ocean) is different from the blue stingray in our area.
Hence, we now use the name (correctly given in the Two Oceans book) Dasyatis
chrysonota, which was bestowed on our species by Andrew Smith,
the first South African ichthyologist, in 1828.

The photo labelled “Rhinobatos
annulatus” is problematic; the colour pattern is different from both
the Cape and Natal forms of annulatus, and the snout seems too blunt
for annulatus. Another possibility is Rhinobatos blochi
Müller & Henle, 1841, the juveniles of which have a few small
pale spots on the disc and tail; but blochi is known only from Cape Point
to Walvis Bay.

The sawfish labelled “Pristis
pectinata” is Pristis zijsron Bleeker 1851. Thirty years
ago sawfishes may have been common in Lake St Lucia and Richards Bay, but
for the past 10 years, sawfishes have been rare in our area.

The zebra moray (page 218)
has recently been shifted to the genus Gymnomuraena, so the correct
name is now Gymnomuraena zebra.

We have two species of popeyed
scorpionfish (Genus Rhinopias) in our area. The one shown
on Plate 106 is Rhinopias eschmeyeri Condé, 1977, as indicated
by the unique round, fleshy flap above each eye. Rhinopias frondosa
has elongate branched tentacles above the eyes, fleshy tentacles
all over the head, body and fins, and a colour pattern of many spots and
streaks.

Rhinopias frondosa,
photo: Peter van Niekerk.

The colour characters given
for Pterois radiata and P. russellii are the wrong way round;
it is radiata (not russellii) that has 5 or 6 broad dark
bars on the body, and 2 or 3 horizontal white stripes on the caudal peduncle.

Radial firefish, Pterois
radiata.

The snout of the pipefish
identified as
Syngnathus acus (page 228) appears much too short
for acus (perhaps the snout was pointing obliquely away from the camera
when this photo was shot.

It is rather misleading to
describe the trumpetfish as “brownish”. In fact the colour of this
species is quite variable; it can be brown, grey, greenish or bright yellow,
but always shows the two black spots at the upper and lower edges of the
caudal fin. The darker varieties often show pale vertical bars when
they are actively hunting.

Pomadasys olivaceum
(page 234) is called a piggy in the Eastern Cape Province, but in KwaZulu-Natal
it is known as a ‘pinky’ -- another example of why we should use
scientific names when we are talking about fishes.

The fish misidentified as
the Russell’s snapper, Lutjanus russellii (page 237) is actually
the onespot snapper, Lutjanus monostigma (Cuvier, 1828). The black
spot on the flanks of L. russellii is larger and mostly above
the lateral line; and adult russellii in the Indian Ocean usually show
7 or 8 narrow, golden-brown stripes running longitudinally on the body
from the head towards the dorsal and caudal fins.

Lutjanus russellii

The distribution of the Natal
knifejaw,
Oplegnathus robinsoni, (page 248) extends south to at
least Aliwal Shoal.

The kob shown in the photo
on page 251 are the squaretail kob, Argyrosomus thorpei Smith, 1977,
known only from Port Elizabeth to the Tugela River. Thanks to the
recent research of Dr Marc Griffiths, the confusion in the taxonomy of
our kob species has been resolved. The species that is properly called
A. hololepidotus is known only from Madagascar. Our common,
large, inshore species of kob, now known as the ‘dusky kob’, Argyrosomus
japonicus (Temminck & Schlegel, 1843), occurs from False Bay to
the northern Indian Ocean and over to Japan and Australia. The dusky
kob attains a length of at least 181 cm and a weight of at least 75 kg.
It is common in estuaries, and the fresh fish has a ‘brassy’ odour.

The very similar ‘silver
kob’, Argyrosomus inodorus Griffiths and Heemstra, 1995 is a smaller
species, maximum size about 90 cm. It differs from A. japonicus
in several features, the most obvious being a longer, more slender caudal
peduncle (peduncle depth 58–74% of peduncle length; versus 70– 92% in A.
japonicus) and the fresh fish has no odour. The silver kob occurs
from Namibia to at least the Kei River in the Eastern Cape Province; in
the region from the Kei River to Cape Agulhas, the silver kob is usually
caught at depths of 10 to 100 metres and rarely enters estuaries or the
surf zone.

Batfishes (Genus Platax)
are often confused, and the photo (page 253) identified as ‘Platax orbicularis”
is actually the longfin batfish, P. teira (Forsskål, 1775).
P.
orbicularis lacks the dark streak in front of the anal-fin origin.

The old woman angelfish was
previously (in Smiths’ Sea Fishes) known as Pomacanthus striatus
(Rüppell, 1836), but that name was shown by Jack Randall to be based
on a juvenile of Pomacanthus maculosus (Forsskål, 1775), which
occurs in the Red Sea and northern Indian Ocean. Consequently, the
Two Oceans book correctly used Pomacanthus rhomboides (Gilchrist
& Thompson, 1908) as the valid name for the old woman, which is known
only from southern Africa. Adults are found from southern KwaZulu-Natal
to Maputo; juveniles are occasionally caught as far south as Knysna.

The limespot (or ‘teardrop’)
butterflyfish (page 256) of the Indian Ocean is now called Chaetodon
interruptus Ahl, 1923. Chaetodon unimaculatus is a similar
species restricted to the Pacific Ocean.

The coachman, Heniochus
acuminatus and the schooling coachman, Heniochus diphreutes
are very similar and often confused (see Smiths’ Sea Fishes, plate
77 where the painting of
H. diphreutes was wrongly labelled as ‘Heniochus
acuminatus’). See diagram on back page of The Fish-Watcher No.
2 for characters to differentiate these two species. The Two Oceans
photo (page 257) that is labelled
H. acuminatus appears to be H.
diphreutes.

The shoal of kingfish identified
as yellowspotted kingfish, Carangoides fulvoguttatus in the photo
on page 259 are blue kingfish, Carangoides ferdau, the adults of
which often show 5-6 dusky bands on the body (as in the photo).

Carangoides fulvoguttatus

Photograph 122.4, misidentified
as Caranx ignobilis, is an excellent photo of the brassy kingfish,
Caranx papuensis. Characteristic colour features of the brassy
kingfish are the upper half of head and body with small black spots,
becoming more numerous with age, the upper caudal-fin lobe uniformly dark,
and the lower lobe dusky to yellow with a narrow white rear margin.

Caranx ignobilis is
mainly silvery grey to black above, usually paler below; fins usually
uniformly pigmented grey to black. It attains a fork length of 165
cm and weight of at least 63 kg.

Giant kingfish, Caranx
ignobilis

The blacktip kingfish is
now Caranx heberi Bennet, 1830, an older name for the species named
Caranx sem by Cuvier, in 1833.

Large adults of the golden
kingfish, Gnathanodon speciosus lose the golden yellow colour and
black bars of the juveniles and are mainly silvery, with irregular black
blotches and spots. The young are often seen exhibiting ‘piloting’
behaviour by swimming in front of sharks and other large fishes.

The eastern little tuna,
Euthynnus affinis, (page 262) is not so little; it attains a weight
of at least 16 kg.

The king mackerel, Scomberomorus
commerson (aka ‘narrowbarred mackerel’) attains at least 220
cm fork length and 46 kg. This species is wrongly called ‘barracouta’,
‘barracouda’, ‘cuda’ or ‘couta’ by some anglers in KwaZulu-Natal; the true
barracudas are in the Family Sphyraenidae.

The blue humphead parrotfish
(page 270) has recently been shifted to another genus, so the scientific
name changes to Chlorurus cyanescens.

So much for the fishy technicalities.
The Two Oceans book is not only indispensable as a guide for identification
of the common marine invertebrate animals, but it is also useful
for identifying many of the common marine fishes one encounters in the
near-shore environment.